1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus for the location of a generally circular article from a waiting position, for example a transport palette to one or several monitoring or machining positions of the article, these positions being angularly offset with respect to one other.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Such apparatus find advantageous application in operations for the monitoring of manufacturing processes, for example ultra-sonic monitoring for flaws of pre-machined articles, in order that these articles should not require finish machining.
In current manufacturing chains, for example for rotary parts of turbo-machines, such as turbine or compressor disks, the pre-machined disks are subjected to a monitoring or control of their various surfaces with the objective of detecting superficial or internal flaws in the material and in order to be able to determine the height, the position, the orientation and possibly the geometry of these flaws or defects in order to be able to accept or reject the article if the or each confirmed defect are of a latent nature, having regard for the predetermined acceptability criteria.
Such control or monitoring operations are currently carried out in the presence of an operator whose role consists of surveillence of the satisfactory functioning of the monitoring installation but especially to effect manually certain manipulating operations of the article, such as, for example, an inversion of two opposed surfaces of the latter must be successively presented for scanning by the ultrasonic beam emitted by a control or monitoring unit.
Such manual operations may constitute an interruption in the chain in processes where all the control operations in themselves are automatic.
In order to render such operations easier, it has been previously proposed to effect the inversion of the article externally of a control chamber with the aid of appropriate means, but this necessitates complex operations since it is necessary initially to introduce the article onto a mounting plate and lowering of the chamber, to effect the control operations on the upper face of the article, to retrieve the article by means of a roller bridge in order to move it vertically and then laterally out of the chamber in order to load it onto an external support member, invert it, then raise it up again with the roller bridge and return it to the inside of the chamber on a plate where it is then possible to effect a second control or monitoring operation on the face of the article previously facing downwardly but now located in the upper position, the article having been inverted.